The Pisces(43)

I touched his stomach. It was so smooth, not cut or built, but not roly-poly either. A little soft, full, but also firm. It was existing. He existed. His arm muscles felt stronger than his abdominal muscles and I wondered if this had something to do with the way he swam. He had no hair on his stomach or pubic hair sticking out up over the sash. I rubbed my hands in a circular motion over the front of the sash and felt his penis under there, strong, semi-hard, like a thick trunk. His balls felt weighty like peaches.

“Oh,” I said. “I wondered what you had.”

“Yes,” he said. “And an ass too. The tail starts below all that, not like human myths where the tail starts at the stomach.”

“Where did you get the sash? Do all of you wear sashes?”

“Shipwreck, obviously,” he said.

“Oh, yes, obviously.” I laughed.

“And a loincloth does make it easier. Sand, jellyfish, it can all be very abrasive.”

“Do you know a lot about Greek myths?” I asked.

“Some,” he said.

“Is that how you know about Sappho? Did you, like, date her or something?”

“I’m not that old.” He laughed.

What did dating even mean for a merman? Tinder under the fucking sea? Swiping right on a starfish?

“Have you…been with any other women who live on land?” I asked.

“Some,” he said.

“Recently?” I asked.

“Not in a while. I’m trying to change that,” he said, and touched my arm.



I liked that it had been some time, because I wanted to be the only one. I didn’t care what the reason was, even if he simply hadn’t been near land. Of course, the inability to be with someone else on land did not mean he loved me in a special way. And his having been with other women who had feet did not necessarily equal lack of love. But it still made me feel safe to be the only one in a long time. These thoughts, themselves, were madness. He lived in the ocean and I lived in the desert. This wasn’t going to last. Maybe there could be some magic bend in our time together, the way I felt when he was going down on me. That had felt so eternal—as though if it were happening in one moment it was happening forever. But no one could live inside a moment. It was already over. And yet, here he was, still with me. We were sitting beside each other and he had his hand on my thigh, my hand tracing his knuckles. He is still here, I kept repeating to myself.

“I have to go,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “It’s not a great idea for me to be out of the water like this with the light coming up.”

I hadn’t realized that it was dawn. The sun was rising over the Santa Monica Mountains, turning the water silver. I could see that a few surfers had made their way to the Venice pier, laughing with one another.

“Are you like a vampire?” I asked. “Are we in one of those teen vampire movies, only you’re a mermaid?”

“Ha, no, nothing like that,” he said. “It’s just not a great idea for anyone to see me out here. I’ve gotten harassed before. I’ve gotten hurt. I could be taken to the Venice freak show. I can’t exactly run. So it’s always dangerous for me to be out of the water.”

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow, but how about the following night? You should wear a skirt again like that.”

“Ha-ha. Okay.”

Two nights sounded so far away. It seemed endless.

“Also, you shouldn’t tell anyone about me,” he said. “As we discussed. Mostly I say that for you. I don’t want you ending up in a psychiatric hospital or in rehab and that’s what people will think if you tell them you met a man who lives under the sea.”



“But you’re just a boy,” I said.

“I’m not Sappho-old but I’m older than you think. The salt has preserved me. Also, maybe I’m immature.”

He kissed me on the forehead and on the hand. Then he dove back into the water, parting the seaweedy murk.

“Wait!” I called. “What time in two nights from now?”

But he was already swimming out into the sunlit waves. I saw a few flicks of his tail on the surface, like a dolphin fin in the distance. Then he disappeared completely, fully submerged under the water. He was showing me what he was, no longer afraid for me to see that he could go under and not come up for breath. I waited a long time in silence. But he never resurfaced.





31.


I decided to skip group. I was too deeply involved with Theo now. What would I even tell them? I’d met a merman who might disprove all of their theories about love? And why would I choose to recover unless everything was total and complete shit? If there was one sparkle, one possibility of getting as high as I could get off a person, why would I throw that potentiality away? You had to hold out for these moments until you knew for sure they were gone and never coming back. I didn’t want group to ruin the way I felt.

I saw this in Diana, with whom I still spoke. She had been in pain but couldn’t surrender—not until she knew it was truly over between her and the objects of her affection. It wasn’t enough for the tennis boys to ignore her texts. They would have to go further. They would have to tell her she disgusted them and it was never happening again. Even that might not be enough. In truth what she needed was to have no remaining options at all, no one left to fuck. She would have to burn through all of the tennis boys in Los Angeles, maybe in the state of California.